Monday, 17 September 2012

On Time

Yes, it's 52 weeks since we had to limp back from South Pool with a broken injector pipe and a full-load of passengers, spilling fuel over the road as we went… 365 days since we had to perform a 9-point turn in East Prawle when Sheppard mis-read his instructions...

This year’s Kingsbridge Bus Running Day was slightly less dramatic for our friend, but equally enjoyable – if not moreso for her long suffering owner-driver.

Here's our friend, reunited by chance with Brian and Ron, who proudly claim to be the last two ex.Kingsbridge drivers still with us. Between them they drove most of the vehicles at Kingsbridge in the 50s and 60s, before being made redundant when the depot closed in 1971. Both still local men, they turned out for the running day and wandered up to the old depot building, only to find their old coach lurking round the side...

Brian and Ron both remember 270 KTA with remarkable clarity. They drove her on Dartmoor tours, Royal Blue duplicates, the lot. They remember her being sent away from Kingsbridge in 1968, and not getting her back. It was incredible to hear.

This is why bus rallies are good, but Running Days are better. The vehicles are back in their own environment, doing what they used to do, summoning up long-forgotten memories for those who were there first time around, and passing them on to those who weren't. I lapped up every word.

Brian told me about the day a new state-of-the-art diesel pump was installed on the forecourt at Kingsbridge; and then about the following day, when he took it out with the side of a bus and got himself suspended for two days. Ron told me about the time he got an SUS stuck on a hill on the East Portlemouth route because the farmer's cows had "made the road slippery".

(And, by the way, guess which route I was about to drive?...)

They spoke about these things as if they'd happened yesterday, and looked at me in horror when I mentioned that 270 KTA had just celebrated her 50th Birthday. So yes, time does fly.

No comments:

Post a Comment

.

This blog is an ongoing chronicle of the adventures I share with my preserved 1962 Bristol SUL4A coach.

Here you'll find tales aplenty of the joy and strife associated with keeping alive a 55 year old vehicle.

Our adventures have been many and varied over the past seven years. The blog’s archive contains rich and colourful stories of success and failure that have typified life with 270 KTA so far; stories of man and machine in perfect harmony, briefly but sometimes brutally interrupted by the odd discordant note.

This blog now has a 'brother' in BDV252C.co.uk, which follows the long-term restoration of my 1965 Bristol SUL bus. To balance the tales of woe and elation in each story, I recommend you follow the two blogs in equal measure!

David Sheppard, 2018

.

About 270 KTA

270 KTA (420) is a 1962 Bristol SUL4A coach, one of 36 such coaches built for Western National and Southern National for use in the West of England. They were predominantly for local tours but also provided relief on express services to London and the North during busy periods.

Bristol's SU-type was a narrow, lightweight chassis designed specifically for use in rural areas. As well as the South West, SU coaches found their way to Wales, with bus-bodied counterparts in Yorkshire, the Isle of Wight and parts of the Home Counties.

420 has a 33-seat body built by Eastern Coachworks of Lowestoft and a 4-cylinder Albion EN250H diesel engine, mounted horizontally underfloor and coupled to a David Brown 5-speed gearbox.

.

A BRIEF HISTORY

420 worked from Western National's Kingsbridge depot when new, where it was to be pride of the fleet for six years. With the decline in local coach tours it moved to Taunton where, along with most other SU coaches, alterations were made to enable use on local bus routes.

.

Moving to Trowbridge depot in 1968, it was something of a oddity in Wiltshire and as such was very well photographed during its stay. When the Trowbridge operation was transferred away from Western National, 420 was returned to Taunton, narrowly missing transfer to the Bristol Omnibus fleet. (Or did it?)

.

420 was renumbered 1220 in June 1971 and, following a spell at Bridgwater depot, was transferred to the Devon General fleet. Accordingly, it received poppy red and white livery - the only SUL coach to be so treated. It was also the only one of its batch to be fully downgraded to bus configuration, with the removal of headrests and the addition of extra seats.

.

Withdrawn from Weymouth depot (still red), '1220' later worked as a school bus in Sussex, before returning to the West to join the fleet of Willis, Bodmin. It was donated to the Western National Preservation Group in 1995, and remained with them for several years, although its poor mechanical state meant it was little used.

.

Purchased by me in December 2009, it was returned to the road in 2011 after major mechanical attention. A rolling programme of restoration has continued while allowing 420 to be used at events and enjoyed by others. By fluke or fate, it now lives just a few miles away from its original home in Kingsbridge and is part of a family fleet of five preserved Bristol vehicles.

270 KTA's Owner and Scribe

David Sheppard lives in the South West of England. He has been involved in bus and coach preservation for more than 25 years, having helped his father to restore their first bus at the age of seven.

David is a trustee and director of the Thames Valley & Great Western Omnibus Trust and a director of NARTM, the National Association of Road Transport Museums, which represents the heritage transport movement to Government departments and agencies, regulators and funding bodies.

A broadcaster by trade, he hosts his own regional show on BBC radio stations across the south‐western quarter of the UK and Channel Islands.